In the churches, in the courts, in the police stations, in Ireland, in Belgium, in Spain, in the US, in Italy, in Austria, in the blogs, in the pews, in the pubs, in the alleys, in the newspapers, in the media, in the... well, everywhere. It has been condemned quite a bit and for a good while now.

I said this when the story broke. I'm skeptical, but this section here makes her story far more believable to me. Liberal women have a long history of saying "just suck it up" to women wronged by liberal men, and they rarely see for what it is unless it happens to them.

If she truely was a liberal, I doubt that she would have just made that part up.

Looks like the New World Governance's aristocracy has once more been rudely attacked by a an American "little person". Nobel Prizes are just not getting the job done. The New Order needs to confer titles like Duke, Earl, and Viscount. Then maybe little people will behave around them as they should.

I know a few massage therapists-- my ex-wife was one back in the day. This sort of behavior by a client is actually rare, much more rare than you might think considering the way that some people think when they hear the word "massage".

In fact, the massage therapists I know would object to the label "masseuse" because of the societal baggage that comes along with it. They prefer "massage therapist".

The point: It takes an exceptionally narcissistic person to pull this sort of stuff. It is attempted rape, nothing less. And if this woman seems a little crazed by the experience, not quite knowing what to do about it, well, that's a perfectly understandable reaction to such a strange and rare and threatening occurrence.

Now will the Dembots start claiming that she was actually a prostitute and that she should have known that a sexual encounter was expected of her upon entering that hotel room?

Or is the line just that this woman is verbose and a little confused and therefore should not be trusted, especially since the offender here is such a super-duper elite?

In the case of the Church we had numerous court cases proving abuse had occurred, and on-the-record accounts of the Church's reaction to those cases.

In this case, we have third-hand accounts of how anonymous people reacted to second-hand accounts of an encounter between Gore and a massage therapist.

So, no, I'm not ready to level anywhere near the kind of condemnation I level at the Church. Even setting aside the fact that the Church is supposed to be held to a higher standard, there's the little fact that they are, and were, provably guilty. The "suck it up" crowd might not even exist.

There appears a common thread across Gore's hypocrisy, sanctimony, profiteering and lechery: he is a vengeful captive of his 2000 loss.

The accuser said Gore maneuvered her into the bedroom. His iPod docking station was there, he told her, and he wanted her to listen to "Dear Mr. President," a lachrymose attack on George W. Bush by the singer Pink.

Obviously, it was the masseuse's fault for failing to make a connection with Gore's root chakra.

Lingam is the Sanskrit word for the penis. It literally means "wand of light". Lingam massage is the ritual of honoring and healing this part of the body. Touching the penis not from a place of arousal and orgasm but from a joy and wonder of this beautiful part of the body.

I hadn't heard just suck it up as a thing liberal women say. Never. I grew up in a .. well I was going to say "conservative" town, but really more than either lib/conservative, it was all about preserving the power structure (a mid sized city in the South). I was a bit of a hellion and I distinctly remember one very powerful woman, a mother of a friend, pointedly relating a story to me about someone who "does not know which side their bread is buttered on." My spine tingled. The message was clear: toe the line young lady.

"This sort of behavior by a client is actually rare, much more rare than you might think"

Of course. The elusive ManBearPig is rarely encountered in the urban setting. Their near extinction is the justification for the crazed-sex-poodle breeding behavior. This is a survival issue. We needs to seek endangered species protection for it.

I think people would have more sympathy if the ManBearPig was cute like bunny or helpless like a Snail Darter or wise like the Spotted Owl. The unfortunate fact that it is a fat, smelly, hairy predator deeply threatens it's survival. We are such anthropocentric fools.

FLS: Glad I caught you because I need some advice. I am off to Scotland for the glorious 12th and need your advice on the best shotgun. Which is it that you use on upland game? I forget. And since I will be there for the opener you might suggest both choke and shot size. Best.

That a man of such singular importance to the continued health, to the very existence of Gaia, was willing to chance the loss of his precious bodily fluids for us, for us...no, I'm a little verklempt...talk amongst yourselves.

"In the churches, in the courts, in the police stations, in Ireland, in Belgium, in Spain, in the US, in Italy, in Austria, in the blogs, in the pews, in the pubs, in the alleys, in the newspapers, in the media, in the... well, everywhere. It has been condemned quite a bit and for a good while now."

Where is the condemnation?

My question was ambiguous - sorry.

I meant, where is the same condemnation for NOW's and this lady's protection of the approved institution at the expense of an individual, as there was for the Catholic church.

Where's the condemnation indeed. I think that has been very much at the root of Althouse's strong reaction against much contemporary feminism.

Indeed it very much is like what happens within the church. People are very quick to condemn outsiders but protect leaders of their own groups. The church scandals were hushed up for so long because people did not want to accuse or destroy a "man of God". It's a terrible habit. Like Paul says in 1 Corinthians, "kick out the immoral brother."

It's for the sake of the message we have to be harsh against those who trash the message with their actions, and not harsh against those who are trashed by "the immoral brother."

How many teachers have been charged/convicted with child molestation in the last 25 years? Judging by the MSM, it was about 3. And they were all hot chicks hooking up with adolescent boys. Anyone think that's an accurate picture?

Isn't that one of the nature-keyed Asian practices that inspired the New Age movement which Camille Paglia believes has preserved the radical vision of the modern sexual revolution?

Question 2: Does Al Gore sport shorts when he's out and about?

They prefer "massage therapist".

I think I see the source of the problem. Slightly buzzed, Al Gore read the words "massage therapist," and read them as MASSAGE THE RAPIST. Because he was the massagee, so to speak, he identified himself as the rapist.

That second chakra horseshit sounds like a remarkably pretentious way of asking for a handjob. I can see Gore using such a high faluting term, and the expression lends credence to the woman's account. Perhaps if he had straight up asked for a hand job or had offered her a productivity bonus, the affair would have had a happier ending. High minded idealists like Gore have a lot of trouble handling their own banality.

FLS: The lab in the picture is doing what he is supposed to do: retrieve a dead bird. Send a picture of one pointing which is what you said yours did.

I am going for the glorious 12th which, of course, is the opening day of grouse season in the UK. But of course you knew that. Since I will be shooting walk-up, as opposed to driven birds, I will probably use a Boss 20 bore, double triggers and side by side. I own a Purdey (two year delivery now old Chap) but it is a 12 and has a cast off stock and is bored too tight for what I will be doing: it was made for driven birds, but you would have known that too. The shooting will be behind English pointers which will point the birds. But you knew that, just as you know some of the people from the village will trail behind with Labradors to pick up the dead birds. But you knew that too. I will likely use #6 but 8s might do as well. The grouse are fast but the English pointers hold them and the hunter can walk up to the back of the quivering pointer and the handler will give him a touch and he will go forward into the birds. Should you miss you can see them fly quite a ways on the moor. But if you hit one, and I will, the Labradors will probably find him even in the heather which is up to mid calf. Hard to find those dead ones without a Labrador Retriever, but you knew that.

Your use of a 12 bore on quail is obscene, way too much gun. Not done where I come from.

Man I miss my chocolate labs. Haven't owned a dog since my female passed 5 yrs ago. Neither hunted a lick, but the male, Frank, was an expert rock diver. You could throw a rock in a lake and he would almost always bring one up at least twice the size of the one thrown. I once remember him working on a rock for the longest time, only his ass-end above water - coming up for air periodically, wondering what in the hell he was trying to do, then finally came up hauling about a 40lb piece of asphalt back to shore he had found to the amazement and cheers of onlookers at a Fourth of July picnic.

Garage: I had a black Labrador named Jacob that I trained using James Lamb Free's book and he was splendid. He loved to duck hunt and chase anything you could throw. Literally you could throw tennis balls in the water all day and he would get them again and again.

I knew a springer spaniel who would go and find those rocks in the woods or in the water. It was amazing, because we all carefully examined the rocks before we threw them. He never cheated.

I would have cheered with the asphalt. Hooray!! And on the fourth. I am dog less at the moment too.

MichaelI should have qualified something. The female, Katy, was a pacifistic all around sweetheart, I don't think she had the make-up to be a good retriever. The male most definitely I think had the potential to be a very good one. The problem was me, not him. Just never had the time or energy to train him, as we just had a baby. Anyways I still think about those labs almost every day.

P.S> I had a friend that had a black lab, Fred, and he was famous for catching fastballs [tennis balls]. You could throw some pretty good heat and he catch most of them, especially when thrown right to give him the full chance. Big, wide ole block head black lab. Beautiful dog. He wouldn't play any other kind of fetch though. Only pitch/catch with tennis balls. Weird. heh

In the case of the Church we had numerous court cases proving abuse had occurred...

Proving? We may have had numerous cases where people were convicted of abuse, but by its very nature this crime is almost impossible to actually "prove". Mostly what we have is allegations, just like in the Gore case.

garage: Old Jake would break before I gave him the signal. He was about a year and a half old and was already huge. James Lamb Free's book suggested I put a choke collar on him and tie on fifty feet of clothes line. Let him break and then shout for him to stop and yank on the clothes line. Well Jake went charging out and I grabbed the cord when he was about thirty feet out. Like in a cartoon my hands were smoking as he easily jerked twenty feet of cord through my palms. Ouch. I then tied it to a tree and when he hit the end of the rope....the choke chain broke. Lesson learned, by me. He was not to be fully broken. RIP Jake.

As the relationship developed over time, Ms. Lewinsky grew emotionally attached to President Clinton. She testified: "I never expected to fall in love with the President. I was surprised that I did."(44) Ms. Lewinsky told him of her feelings.(45) At times, she believed that he loved her too.(46) They were physically affectionate: "A lot of hugging, holding hands sometimes. He always used to push the hair out of my face."(47) She called him "Handsome"; on occasion, he called her "Sweetie," "Baby," or sometimes "Dear."(48) He told her that he enjoyed talking to her -- she recalled his saying that the two of them were "emotive and full of fire," and she made him feel young.(50) He said he wished he could spend more time with her.(51)

Ms. Lewinsky told confidants of the emotional underpinnings of the relationship as it evolved. According to her mother, Marcia Lewis, the President once told Ms. Lewinsky that she "had been hurt a lot or something by different men and that he would be her friend or he would help her, not hurt her."(52) According to Ms. Lewinsky's friend Neysa Erbland, President Clinton once confided in Ms. Lewinsky that he was uncertain whether he would remain married after he left the White House. He said in essence, "[W]ho knows what will happen four years from now when I am out of office?" Ms. Lewinsky thought, according to Ms. Erbland, that "maybe she will be his wife."(53)

Like in a cartoon my hands were smoking as he easily jerked twenty feet of cord through my palms.

Dang. Know the feeling though. I really stupidly tried to thumb a spool of line over-spinning on a Penn reel with a real big wahoo that I set the drag too light on. Had a blister/groove on my thumb forever. Lesson learned.

Michael: Where I'm from, 12 gauge is the first choice for quail, and for just about anything else, unless you're a child or a woman.

Now, I'm not saying that a 20 gauge is useless. My grandmother was a legendary shot with a 20 gauge; our family tells a story of how some dandies from Field & Stream showed up at the farm for some quail hunting with extravagantly expensive shotguns like yours, and FLS's; and she supposedly put them to shame with a beat-to-hell single-shot worth a few dollars.

So a 20 gauge could be a good choice; if you're a teenage girl, like she was.

I'm not sure what you and FLS are going on about, what with the farcical nonsense about villagers trailing behind to pick up the birds and $5,000 shotguns and such; sounds like you're trying to out-shithead each other as a continuation from another thread. They're quail. You get within a few yards and execute them on take-off. It's the easiest wingshooting there is. They might as well be sitting on a fencepost. You should use a slingshot, as I have, and give them a chance.

Please everyone remember this episode when it is time to beat up on a conservative Republican when some charge is made against her/him. Please no whining about how the charges are unsubstantiated and based on one person's word about an event that supposedly happened several years ago.

All's fair! I hear that Bobby Jindal has some pretty juicy skeletons in his closet!

Pastafarian: My first gun was a pump 12 gauge Savage and I killed a lot of birds with it. I find that I can swing a 20 a lot faster in my 65th year than I can a heavy 12. I shot over 900 dove in a day in Argentina and I was not even close to the top guy. 20 gauge. Could not have made the day with a 12. I have seen a lot of good old country boys chawing about their skills to the city boys with the fancy guns and have seen the city boys out shoot them. I used to shoot with a local in upstate NY who had a single shot 12 with an extra shell duct taped to the stock. He couldn't shoot worth a shit. Grew good dope, though.

Gary HartBill ClintonJohn Edwards,All Presidents or at least the choice of most Democrats at one time. That's just at the Presidential level.

There is of course other levels of Government where the light is even brighter

William JeffersonMarion BarryCynthia McKinney

"Democrat" it's the new "classy".

All of their exploits were denied initially as well. Some people are just losing the right to the benefit of the doubt. I certainly believe in innocent until proven, but where are all the cases where the rumor turned out wrong?

I do not believe that Al Gore can act scummy because Anita Hill made baseless accusations against Clarence Thomas. I think Al Gore should use escort services properly. I believe that, with a little training, he will succeed.

Interesting that garage only wants to talk about dogs and Jake is already laying the ground work to justify the next media smear job on a Republican, "I hear that Bobby Jindal has some pretty juicy skeletons in his closet!".

Doesn't matter whether they're true, just that "when it is time to beat up on a conservative Republican". Another son of a Saul.

Problem is The Living Redwood's victim, like Juanita Broaddrick and Kathleen Willey, has turned out to be credible, This is what happens when people who fancy themselves the ruling class in a federal republic try to invoke le droit de seigneur.

This thread merely proves the point Althouse made in her post: the left is primarily interested in propping up its leadership at whatever cost. Logic, principle, virtue, and coherence are twaddle compared to what's most important: defending the Dear Leaders.

This is a perfect example of the vapidity and stupidity of people on the left. No one here is making any connection between the charges against Gore and global warming. The person making the charge said that someone told her she should not make the charge because doing so could affect Gore's global warming crusade.

"...the obvious fact that Clarence Thomas was woefully under qualified for the court."

Who are you Harry Reid?

Henry: When you were asked on NBC's "Meet the Press" whether or not you could support Justice Thomas to be chief justice you said quote, "I think that he has been an embarrassment to the Supreme Court. I think that his opinions are poorly written." Could you name one of those opinions that you think is poorly written? Reid: Oh sure, that's easy to do. You take the Hillside Dairy case. In that case you had a dissent written by Scalia and a dissent written by Thomas. There--it's like looking at an eighth-grade dissertation compared to somebody who just graduated from Harvard.

Here is what Thomas wrote:I join Parts I and III of the Court's opinion and respectfully dissent from Part II, which holds that §144 of the Federal Agriculture Improvement and Reform Act of 1996, 7 U.S.C. §7254, "does not clearly express an intent to insulate California's pricing and pooling laws from a Commerce Clause challenge." Ante, at 6-7. Although I agree that the Court of Appeals erred in its statutory analysis, I nevertheless would affirm its judgment on this claim because "[t]he negative Commerce Clause has no basis in the text of the Constitution, makes little sense, and has proved virtually unworkable in application," Camps Newfound/Owatonna, Inc. v. Town of Harrison, 520 U.S. 564, 610 (1997) (Thomas, J., dissenting), and, consequently, cannot serve as a basis for striking down a state statute.

Here are people on the left hoping against hope that it ain't so, but resigned to the fact that it most likely is, and a bit chastened about the whole thing.

And there are the ones on the right insisting that everyone on the left is in denial about Gore simply because they are leftists and must stand together or some such.

Newsflash: this has been in the Post and the NYT, on the front web page. Libs understand what this means. They might not be shouting it from the rooftops as you are, but that does not mean they are assault apologists or otherwise in denial about it.

*Assistant Attorney General of Missouri *Corporate Attorney with Monsanto Company*Legislative Assistant for a US Senator*Assistant Secretary of Education for the Office of Civil Rights*Chairman of the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission*Judge, United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit

The problem you are having is that you and your buddy Jake have come here with preconceived notions about whom you will find. And you are trying to fit what you see written into those preconceived notions. And it's not working out for you because your preconceived notions are wrong and you are stupid.

The pic in the lower left hand corner, where "Ash" is pointing a bird.

I never cared about shooting birds in the UK. I know about Purdey because my one buddy visited them in London, and bought as much as he could afford, which was a pair of snap caps.

A friend of mine shoots dove, even late in the season, with a .410, and I do admire him for that.

If my great-uncle ever kicks, he's promised to leave me his drilling. But of course you know what that is.

pasta, a Citori doesn't cost much more than an autoloader, and is much less touchy. My first shotgun was a Mossberg that someone had won in a DU raffle and wanted to get rid of. And the safeties of the two guns are in the same place.

I don't know any liberal who ever idolized Al Gore. To me he was as big a sad sack as W. Al had warmed a chair in the West Wing for eight years, and thought he was entitled to be President, without any visible aptitude for the job.

Anyone who wants to look back a couple of days will find said Hillbillies were more than a little skeptical of the charges. Ann, in particular, talked about waiting for more evidence. Nobody was ready to imagine The Living Redwood had been taking lessons from the Serial Rapist in Chief.

"Bag -- Don't you remember how conservatives were so voraciously defending the foot-tapper guy?"

That's a good example for comparison.

Larry Craig tapped his foot in a bathroom stall. At worst, propositioning an adult for sex... maybe. I still don't see the crime there, unless you just hate gayism.

Al Gore assaults and attempts to rape a woman. Is there any question about that being despicable and illegal?

Yet many liberals see these as about equal on the scandal chart. That's why these liberal leaders think they can do this crap. It's the group's mores in action and these are the alphas, (alpha-liberals, so to speak).

Don't bother Jake with the fact that I myself said and continue to maintain that these charges strain credibility because Al Gore surely knows how to order an escort properly. Jake has come here with preconceived notions about Althouse and its commentariat.

The "hillbillies" part cinches it; the man can't even come up with an original insult so he had to get it from some other place that was talking about us. But we are the idiots. Jake read about it in some leftist hothouse.

In the juvenile leftist mind, it is a much bigger scandal to be a gay Republican than to be accused of trying to molest an unwilling backscrubber while married.

After all, it's just human nature to want to throw yourself all over somebody sexually. But nobody could value economic and political freedom over the right to have recognition of your marriage vows from the government -- the government, the end-all, be-all of space, time, and existence.

Gore's being right about global warming puts him in the category of stopped clocks and blind pigs. The man has traditionally given empty suits a bad name.

I'm going to charitably guess he was high as a weather balloon at massage time. No one who looks like him could see himself in the mirror every day and conclude women craved a carnal connection with him.

If my great-uncle ever kicks, he's promised to leave me his drilling. But of course you know what that is.

The relative I have in town who remembers the Flu Pandemic of 1918 had a sweet blue steel Colt Handgun made in the 30s. My great-uncle gave it to her for when she drove around S. Carolina at night. I coveted it, but she gave it to a nephew of hers who collects.

What happened? This link is to a line you couldn't put in a novel. A masseuse, getting advice from other masseuses that if she presses charges against Al Gore for sexual assault, "the world's going to be destroyed from global warming."

I don't care where you are on this issue, that is spit-out-your-coffee funny. It's like that famous line in the Beatles' "Help!" when the villain says of a ring that Ringo's wearing, "With this ring I could, dare I say it, rule the world!"

I can just see Jake and HT and the others sitting in the audience back in 1965 when everyone else is laughing, sitting grim-faced saying, "that's not funny! You're not supposed to laugh at things like that! Damn these hillbillies!"

Does anyone ever notice how important it is to move on -- HT's words -- from scandals plaguing leftists (there's even a website called moveon, about something that happened in 1998). Yet we must dwell on things like George W. Bush's military service during the Vietnam War, some person named Valerie Plame, hurricanes in the South, toe-tapping gay members or Congress, and all manner of calamities involving Republicans?

This is the dumbest thread I've ever read here, mainly because of Michael and FLS's ridiculous oneupsmanship about hunting. Nobody gives a shit, guys, but no doubt you two will be impressed to learn that my gillies do my hunting for me, and pepper each other's face with buckshot on my command, while I sit in my sedan chair, laughing, laughing, la--ouch, my gout.

Is it time to play "let's pretend"? As in "let's pretend the mainstream media and the political left (but I repeat myself) don't automatically treat accusations as gospel truth when they are leveled against conservatives"?

Oh you have GOT to be kidding me. The Gore is/was a fucking rockstar to the Left. He's the guy who got robbed by W. He's the guy who championed Global Warming on the world stage. He made A Movie. And it Won and Academy Award. And he Won the Nobel Prize. Practically every mention of Gore in the past ten years by a liberal has been made with drooling adoration. What you wrote just confirms to me that you are a horrible liar.

We know that millions of Teacher's Union members must love him. They allowed that crappy movie of his to supplant centuries of actual scholarship on subjects like how coastlines are formed, how weather patterns and climatic conditions make for a constantly changing environment, the role of solar (and other) radiation in Earth's life cycles, etc. Just basic natural sciences stuff. All chucked out the window in favor of an ex-Veep doing his best Troy McClure impression. Frickin' Nobel Prize for narrating a film? Gimme a break.That's even weaker than Obama's Nobel Prize for Participation.

There are a couple of Lab owners on this blog who can fill you in on their role in the field.

I have an idea. You contact the dog breeders whose site you linked to . You ask them if they have a Labrador pointer for sale. If they say yes I will buy you the dog or pay you the equivalent amount of money. If, on the other hand, they laugh in your face, you pay me.

On Al Gore: I agree at this point it's He said/She Said. Perhaps the allegedly cum-stained pants will be dispositive. The only interesting part of this tawdry story is the way the masseuse's friends urged her to take one for the team. Any denial that this is the way Gore has been treated for years by the Left is laughable.

On hunting: of course most Labs are flushers and retrievers, not pointers. But some can indeed be trained to point, making what is probably the perfect all-around canine hunting companion. I recall reading an article on this very topic in the American Hunter a decade or two ago.

The only thing I use a 12 gauge for is ducks and geese. I even took my modest 20 gauge o/u on a pheasant hunt for the first time a couple of years ago, and limited out by mid morning every day with very few misses and no cripples or lost birds. Totally humiliated my sky busting pal with his 12 ga. Benelli autoloader shooting 3-1/2 inch shells.